Maria Theresa

Maria Theresia I of Austria (13 May 1717-29 November 1780) was the Queen of Austria and Hungary from 1740 to 1780 and Empress of the Holy Roman Empire from 1745 to 1780. In both tenures, she was preceded by Karl VI of Austria and succeeded by Joseph II of Austria.

Biography
Maria Theresia was born on 13 May 1717 to Karl VI of Austria and Elizabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbuttel in the Hofburg Palace of Vienna, Austrian Empire. Maria became the Holy Roman Empress after her father's death in 1739, and she could succeed as a woman due to her father's 1713 Pragmatic Sanction law. The allies of Austria accepted her as ruler of Austria, Bohemia, and Hungary, but nations such as Prussia, France, Spain, Bavaria, Naples & Sicily, Saxony, Genoa, Sweden, and Sardinia did not accept the legitimacy of her rule and the War of the Austrian Succession broke out in 1740. She lost Silesia to Prussia in an eight-year war, and attempts to reclaim the region in the 1750s failed in the Seven Years' War. She died in 1780, and was succeeded by Joseph II of Austria.